When I'm Sixty-Four: The Plot Against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them

All the facts you need to make up your own mind about pensions. Comprehensively argued, analytically brilliant; if you are interested in or involved in restoring, defending, and extending pension justice, you would be making a mistake by not reading this book.

Book basher lives up to his or her name. I checked book basher's complaints out. In fact, this book is written by a world-renowned authority in retirement policy. One of her recent publications is in what is unquestionably a major journal -- "Journal of Pension Economics and Finance." She is currently Professor of Economics and the Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Resarch. Just yesterday, Dec. 14, the New York Times magazine cited her plan for Guaranteed Retirement Account (GRA) as one of the best ideas in 2008. "Book basher"-- by the way why would someone raise themselves up with the identity of a destroyer?" -- made the classic mistake in evaluating the stock market's future by looking backward and choosing a thirty year period to make a judgment about stock market returns. Book basher forgets that what we know happened wasn't apparent before it happened. All professionals know that what was a sure thing looking backwards was a risky venture looking forward. The 30-year window is of absolutely no relevance for someone who works forty years and is left with no choice when approaching retirement age. There is no product on the market, nor can there ever be, that will pay a risk free rate of 3% PLUS inflation. Only the richest and most stable government on earth can guarantee that rate -- it is linked to the growth rate of the US economy -- over all lifetimes. I agree, 70% of final income for retirement is not adequate for most people. Ghilarducci says directly in her book that personal responsibility is still required. All middle class people, and those who have more income will have to save more than the 5% the GRA requires. The GRA plus Social Security is designed to give a middle class worker a 70% replacement rate. Face it, if we all want to retire on what we earn we will have to save about 10% of our income every month. At least this book tells it like it is and it has a lot of information about how we got this way.

An excellent review of various types of retirement pensions (DB abd DC) including explanations of social security.

Ghilarducci's book is great because it covers so much ground and makes a complex subject uderstandable. One of the points of the book is that it describes how rotten 401(k) plans are and how much taxpayers are spending on them. The end result is that the very highest income people get huge tax breaks and half of the workforce gets nothing. It also has a good history about how we got in this mess and why baby boomers are going to do worse than their parents and grandparents in maintaining a decent standard of living in retirement. It was also fun to read; there are short sections called "data to digest" so you don't get bogged down in numbers and stories about companies and their pension systems. A must read to understand the big debate on Social Security and how we can save the system for our own retirement.